


The Right Doctor

by Trobadora



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: M/M, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 18:17:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Old habits die hard, and this is one of his oldest: Jack tracks the Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Right Doctor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/gifts).



It's the year 1892, and Jack doesn't die. It's the year 1999, and Jack's entire team is dead, but he can't die. It's all the years in between, and he's still looking for answers.

It's the year 2005, and a man named Clive has built a database of the Doctor's appearances. Jack's Doctor. Jack downloads it and looks at the pictures, wistfully.

~*~

He finds the TARDIS often enough, over the years, but she's never safe to approach, and the man who comes out of her doors is very rarely the one he recognises. He understands this quickly enough: the rumours about regeneration are true. Finding the TARDIS isn't hard, not with a 51st century scanner, but finding the _right_ TARDIS is.

There is one place he knows, though - one place he's sure the Doctor will return to. The Rift in Cardiff: the Doctor's been there exactly twice. Any other appearance of the TARDIS on the Rift will be safe to approach: it will be in the Doctor's future. It will be a version of the Doctor who knows Jack.

~*~

Jack waits, and lives, and dies, and still waits. He's always too late. The Doctor doesn't come to Cardiff.

He's been working for Torchwood for a long time when the Sycorax turn up. When he sees the security footage afterwards, he knows the man in the brown coat instantly. But now he knows something else: this one must come after the one he knew - he's travelling with Rose.

~*~

At the Battle of Canary Wharf, Jack is too late again. Much too late, in more ways than one: on the list of the dead, it says Rose Tyler.

He curses the Doctor.

~*~

When the TARDIS finally comes to Cardiff, he only just catches her.

~*~

"I ran away from you," the Doctor says as the radiation room's door closes between them. "I left you behind."

It's not as if Jack didn't know, in his heart of hearts. He knew it when he saw the TARDIS dematerialise on Satellite Five. But still there was a part of him that stubbornly hoped otherwise.

Either way, the Doctor's blitheness stings.

~*~

Old habits die hard, and this is one of his oldest: he keeps tracking the Doctor. Even having said good-bye only days ago, even having said no to an invitation (half-hearted, but more than he expected) - Jack can't quite let it go.

He doesn't need answers any more. ( _You're wrong, Jack. You're wrong._ ) He doesn't look for death any more. ( _Do you want to die?_ ) But he's still looking.

It's habit. It's curiosity. It's something to do.

~*~

He even follows up on things that happened during his absence, the year they lost coming back from Malcassairo. A computer virus that reset every single counter on the planet to zero is no small thing, after all.

In a little town called Leadworth, Jack hears about a man. The pictures he's shown are a bit blurry, but clear enough: this man is wearing the tattered remains of the brown-coated Doctor's suit. 

"He left it behind, you know," a nurse says, half incredulous, half morbidly fascinated. "Rifled through the whole changing room, stole some clothes, and left those rags behind."

~*~

_He died_ , Jack thinks. _The Doctor died._ He stares at the photo, commits the new features to memory. Young, very young, though perhaps that's partially the blurriness of the picture. A shock of brown hair, prominent nose and chin. Cute.

He's who comes after.

Jack isn't ready for him.

~*~

He sees the brown-coated Doctor again. They rebuild their bridges; they mend their fences; they travel together for a while.

But all that time, Jack knows. Every kiss is a kiss good-bye.

~*~

When it happens, he's in no frame of mind to care. It's only afterwards, after he's said good-bye to Alonso, feeling strangely renewed just for having made that simple connection for a single night - it's only then that he realises. The Doctor was saying good-bye.

This is when it happens. He's lost him, again.

~*~

In Jack's mind, there's an image of a much too young-looking man with a bow-tie, and he scowls at him.

 _You'd better be worth it_ , he thinks.


End file.
